How to go about starting a non-profit organization?

How would you go about starting a non profit organization? and getting funding?

• this is a link for our Facebook page some likes would be appreciated and it might help you understand what kind of non profit organization we want to start. ...show more

• Answer:

  I'm not on FB, but my advice would be to find an existing suicide prevention program and support them. If you are far enough away, perhaps they would entertain having a satellite branch. But starting a new non-profit can often take away money and effort from the cause you are meaning to support, because it costs so much to register and stay legit with the IRS. Keeping administrative overhead down is the best way of keeping things above board, and it makes far more sense to find someone else who has already done the front work, so you arent spending precious funds doing that. NEver underestimate the voracity with which the IRS will go after you if you are raising funds publicly under the auspices of a "non-profit". Many little non-profits sprang up after Katrina - most of them well meaning- but there was a big housecleaning when things died down. Most of the newly formed chairties were disbanded, and some were even prosecuted for mismangement of funds and fraud. This is no game - and you would be far more effective finding an establshed group that had already met the test, rather than risk the consequences. http://www.afsp.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.viewPage&page_id=742A4D98-936D-1613-0F394F875E50E0EE